“Marco, why have you been here so long?”
He shrugged. “No place else we can go or come back to.”
“But haven’t you tried to follow any of the other dragons and riders when you see them inbetween ?” she asked.
“Yes, we’ve tried. But it’s all just endless grayness. We’ve flown for hours, no, days! But it’s always been the same. At first, I thought I could see an end to it, and tried to get to it, but I never could. It always receded as fast as Duluth and I approached.”
He took another breath and said in a rush, “Sometimes, though . . . I see dragons, usually with their riders, just heading away—sometimes heading up . . .” He waved his hand in some inexplicit overhead direction. “They aren’t heading forbetween , because they are alreadybetween . They are aiming for some destination . . .beyond between. ”
“Beyondbetween ?” A shiver ran down her spine. “But there’s nothing beyondbetween .”
A heavy silence fell over them and it was quite some time before either one spoke.
“Are you sure?” Marco asked quietly.
“You should know. You arrived here in a spaceship, so you should have seen all there was to see of Pern.”
“You better believe it.” His tone was nostalgic. “They put the forward view up on all the screens so we could watch it getting closer. Most of us were awake, preparatory to landing, and I don’t think many of us bothered to eat or sleep. We couldn’t get enough of watching.” His eyes glowed. “Prettier than Earth, beautiful blue seas and green lands, and some desert spots, too. But beautiful—and ours!”
“And did you seebetween ?”
He gave her a very thoughtful look before he shook his head slowly. “Betweenwas something we needed the dragons to find for us. It’s somethingthey do. We don’t. Their own special place.”
“Dragons gobetween to die,” Moreta said flatly.
“They may go throughbetween ,” he retorted, “but they don’t stay there. No bodies. I’ve gone to check when I see a dragon in the grayness.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Moreta wasn’t sure of anything anymore, but she said nothing. She knew that dragons would gobetween if their riders had died. She knew that sometimes riders and dragons wentbetween together if the life of one of them had become insupportable. Her head snapped back as she was gripped by an overwhelming sense of urgency.
“I have to be with Orlith and get Holth back to Leri somehow,” she said.
“I understand,” Marco said.
“Didn’t you say I could go back to the place I came from? Waterhole?” She stood up, dusting sand from her clothing.
He looked up at her, almost expressionlessly. “You can go back to Waterhole, yes, but I’m not sure it will do you any good.”
“If I can get back to Waterhole maybe I can get back to Fort Weyr.”
He tilted his head sideways, a wry look on his face. “Now that may be the problem. You see, you’re dead.”
She stared at him with a combination of horror and disbelief. “By the shards of my dragon’s egg! Then why am I here withyou ?” She tilted her head to one side, looking intently at his eyes, and reached out her hand to pull him to his feet. He stared at her outstretched hand and then, clenching and unclenching his jaw, he returned her unwavering gaze. Moreta held her breath but did not break eye contact.
“You’re not with the right dragon. You should have gonebetween with Orlith, not Holth!” he said, and in one smooth movement he gripped her forearm and pulled himself to his feet.
“Couldn’t I find a way to get a message to Leri?”
He gave her an odd smile. “I don’t think they’ll see you,” he said in a measured tone. “And I’m not sure writing a message will work either.”
“Why not?”
He sighed. “It’s the problem of making it visible.”
She looked frantically at the sun, which was very low on the horizon. “I must go now,” she said, shrugging into her riding jacket.
She was about to call to Holth when Marco put a heavy hand on her shoulder to prevent her moving.
“I should have gone right back and waited,” she said, ducking her shoulder from under his grasp.
“No!” he said in a loud, firm voice. Holth raised her head and Duluth looked over at him from where he was drowsing in the sun, a peaceful green color in his many-faceted eyes. “It wouldn’t have done you any good. I’m positive of that.”
She subsided, more out of confusion than because he had prevented her. There’s something he knows that he won’t tell me, Moreta thought. Marco stared hard at Moreta’s face.
“I’ve had a great deal of time to think, Moreta. More than any man should have. And I’ve begun to believe that dragons can be immortal. I think that’s why I’m still here with Duluth.”
“Immortal?”
“I mean, they do not age, as we do, nor do their bodies decay. They can live hundreds of Turns.”
“But dragons can get injured in Threadfall and get sick,” Moreta protested, seizing on the one fact she did understand.
“Sure, but their organs don’t degenerate, so technically, they could last as long as they want to. Usually, they last as long as their rider; because the bond between the two is so strong they don’t wish to live after the rider is gone.” Marco paused and then, taking a deep breath, struggling to find the right words, continued. “Dragonmen, and I guess other folk on Pern, have rules and beliefs they live by. Where I came from we had quite a few belief systems. Some were very useful; some were very misused. But I won’t go into allthat now. Beyond everything, though, the one tenet the people of my world cherished was that there is a part of us that’s more than bones and blood.”
When Moreta shook her head, more confused than ever, he went on.
“Don’t you think we all have something about us that is special, different?” Marco asked. “An essence that makes you different from everyone else?”
“I’m not very different from everyone else I know,” she said, almost defensively.
“Well, you are a queen rider,” he said, “and your essence—power—and that of your dragon are eternally interlocked. You will never be parted.”
A tortured expression marred Moreta’s pretty face. Marco’s words were confusing her. All his talk of beliefs and blood and bones made her head reel. She needed todo something. Now! She feared she was wasting time.
“I’m apart from my dragon right now,” she said and walked toward Holth. “If I can get back to Waterhole, I must go now.”
He followed her, glancing over at Duluth, who immediately struggled out of his comfortable sand wallow. Holth woke, startled, her eyes beginning to whirl with the orange-red of alarm.
What is wrong?
“No, dear, no dear, it’s all right,” Moreta said. “We’re going back to Waterhole. I have to try to get back to Orlith. Somehow I’ll get a message to Leri to join us.”
Leri,Holth echoed, a piteous tone tingeing her mental voice.
Moreta turned to Marco. “You’re sure I can make the journey back?”
Marco nodded slowly. “Every one of us here can get back to our last point of entry. Just nowhere else—except of course Paradise River, because I can lead them in.”
Heaving a sigh, he touched her arm in sympathy. “You can’t jumpnow to where you intended to gothen .”
He shrugged into his worn riding jacket. “We’ll come with you—to guide you through.”
Holth moved slowly until Duluth leaned toward her, touching her muzzle. That revived the old queen. Moreta made much of her, patting her neck and murmuring suitable reassurances and endearments as she hauled herself onto the dragon’s back.
“Now, you’d best visualize Waterhole just after dusk,” he said, securing his helmet and giving it a brief rub to settle over his hair. “Me and Duluth will wait for you inbetween to help you get back here.”
Moreta held the landscape firm in her mind: the way the fe
nces came to a point for the three fields and the hold off to the left; the way the lowering sun had caught sparkles from the gray-blue roof slates.
“Go on,” Marco said, showing her both hands with his thumbs pointed up.
“Let’s go to Waterhole, Holth,” she said, and the queen, slithering a bit in the sand underfoot, managed a much more energetic ascent than her last two.
“Black, blacker, blackest,” Moreta mumbled out of habit as she felt the dragon’s body lifting.
“You’re ready to drop, Moreta,” Marco shouted and, before she could draw another breath, she and Holth dropped through the grayness and were out in to fresh crisp air. Above them, Timor, the smaller moon, was just rising. A runnerbeast was shrieking at the top of its lungs, a gray-muzzled roan animal, his unusual markings gleaming in the moonlight. The other runners in the paddock were galloping around him in mindless terror. With neither Marco nor Duluth nearby, Moreta was afraid.
Holth managed a graceful glide to their destination of the intersecting fence lines. Lights, warm and yellow from glowbaskets, were visible in the nearby hold. Moreta heard sudden shouts of fright. All the lights went out, as the hold door was slammed tight by whoever looked out to see why the runnerbeasts were shrieking. She was just about to nudge Holth to walk to the hold and see why they had been so frightened when the doorway opened again, a mere crack, and a figure was silhouetted in the light.
“Who is it? Who goes there?” Moreta recognized the voice as Thaniel’s.
“Moreta, of course, Thaniel,” she called, but he didn’t seem to see her. Rusty shrieked again and Thaniel turned toward the sound.
“Stupid beast! There’s no one here.” He swept his hand in a wide gesture as if he saw nothing but empty space. An empty space that Moreta was sure she filled.
“Thaniel! I’m here. Can’t you see me?” she shouted as loud as she could, urging Holth to move forward.
Rusty increased his complaints, racing up and down the fenced enclosure, showing the whites of his eyes in terror.
“Shut your bawling!” Thaniel roared at Rusty. “The riders looking for Moreta have all gone back to their Weyrs. There’s not a sign of a dragon in the sky.”
Moreta was stunned. She ought to have returned earlier. If he could hear that wretched creature, surely he could hear her shouting? She dismounted Holth quickly and ran up to Thaniel, to stand right in front of him. In fact, when he turned his head back in her direction, she had to take a step back or their noses would have touched. She reached out to grab his arm, and Thaniel immediately gave a visible shudder that ran from his dusty boots to his long hair.
He mumbled something Moreta couldn’t hear and wrapped his arms about himself. “Am I getting the plague after all?” he cried out loud.
“No, you old fool. I’m trying to make you see me,” Moreta answered. But he did not appear to hear her, though Rusty continued bawling and wheeling around his enclosure, stirring up the other animals. Thaniel turned abruptly, trembling, and ran back to his hold, slamming the door firmly behind him.
“Marco was right. How can I possibly communicate with him if he doesn’t see or hear me?” Moreta exclaimed as she marched back to Holth, and then vaulted to the dragon’s back.
In the lights from the front window of the hold, Moreta could see that Thaniel still had his arms crossed in front of him—a recognizable stance of warding off fear.
They don’t see us, Moreta,Holth said mournfully.We went betweenbut never arrived.
Think hard about Fort Weyr, then, Holth, and take us there. Think of the mountain range behind the Weyr. Think of the ledge on which you have lain so long, protecting Leri. Think of home, Holth. Take us there.
Moreta’s last sentence was a wish as well as an order. Summoning strength from deep within, Holth leapt from the ground, her wings valiantly stroking her body upward, and then they wentbetween . It was cold and . . . gray, but not as bone-numbingly cold as before. And Moreta’s litany did nothing to reassure her that they would come out at sunset above Fort Weyr, with the range of familiar mountains, the familiar bowl, and the ledges where dragons lay basking in the sunlight.
A vast shiver caught Moreta at the back of her neck, ran down her spine and to her toes. She leaned forward on Holth’s neck, feeling the warmth of the dragon through her gloves and the cheek she laid against a neck ridge. They remained inbetween , and grayness stretched around her, merging in the distance with black.
“No luck, huh?” Marco appeared before them, edging Duluth forward.
“Thaniel was talking to himself, or his terrified runnerbeast, perhaps. He said riders had come back to look for me,” she said, trying to keep the panic she felt out of her voice. “But he didn’t see me.” She shivered again.
“Then let’s go back to Paradise River—it’s warmer there. We’ll figure out what we can do,” Marco said, an air of optimism in his voice.
“What do you mean?” Moreta tried to keep the tension out of her tone.
“You said Thaniel was talking to himself, or his runnerbeast. And the beast was terrified?”
Moreta nodded her head.
“Although Thaniel didn’t see you,” Marco continued, “maybe his runnerbeastdid . If you keep returning to Waterhole, terrifying the poor runner, Thaniel might start to wonder why.” He sounded as if he was containing some private amusement.
“Keep returning to Waterhole?” Moreta repeated. “Why?”
“Let me explain. On Earth some people believed they saw the ‘essence,’ if you will, of a person who had died. Some even claimed that the ‘essence’ or ‘ghost’ would return, again and again, to a favorite place.” He paused again as Moreta regarded him with incomprehension. “Ghosts, they claimed, appeared in order to make the living do their bidding.”
“I don’t know a thing about ghosts. But I knowI don’t want to go around scaring people,” she said dogmatically.
“Hell’s bells, woman, you’ve done half the job already! You’ve scared the runnerbeast, probably scared Thaniel half to death, too. They know you’re dead! Youhave to keep going back.”
“What?”
“You keep going back and maybe Thaniel will see you. Then maybe you can find a way to let him know what you want. It’s the only option I can think of to reunite you with your dragon.”
“Should I go back to Waterhole now?”
“Hmmm, no, I think not. You should return at the same time every day—or night, better yet. Otherwise Thaniel will think his runner is quite mad. Go back tomorrow, same time. Now, you and Holth should come back to the beach.”
Moreta couldn’t imagine how Marco’s plan would work, but she followed him nonetheless. Marco urged his dragon aloft and then, with all the assurance of a long-term wingleader, pointed downward and disappeared through the uneven floor ofbetween .
“Tired, yes, she must have been very tired,” Leri said, and Kamiana wondered how many times the old Weyrwoman would have to go over the tragic events that had left her without her beloved dragon. This tragedy had aged the old Weyrwoman terribly. “The plague was so virulent and we were short of dragons and riders. Orlith was fretting over her eggs and I was weary from the ache in my joints. They were both willing to complete the deliveries and I encouraged them. But,” and now her eyes flashed with anger as well as tears, “theyboth should have made it back to Fort, of all places.”
Leri groaned and reached for the cup that was always close to her badly twisted right hand. She sighed before she sipped—a long swallow, and then waited until it began to ease her pain.
“I do so completely desire all this to be over,” Leri said wearily. “I’m tired of this old body. Orlith says if I stay until her clutch is ready to hatch, then she’ll take me with herbetween .”
Kamiana bowed her head; she had no words of reply. She sat silently, a gentle hand resting on Leri’s arm.
Footsteps sounded along the stone passageway outside Leri’s quarters, and Kamiana heard someone clearing their throat. She rose quietly fr
om her seat next to Leri’s bed and went to the door.
“We have come to see Leri,” said Sh’gall. He gestured to Desdra, Lidora, Levalla, and the MasterHarper Tirone, all of whom stood quietly behind Sh’gall, concern and anxiety clearly stamped on their faces.
“Please, come in.” Kamiana gestured for them to enter. “She is weary from the pain, tired of life, yet I think your visit would be welcome—to help pass the time . . .” She led the group into Leri’s quarters, and the old Weyrwoman greeted them with a wave of her hand.
“I have been berating myself,” Leri said to those gathered around her. “I should not have encouraged Moreta and Holth to deliver those vaccines. High Reaches was to cover Tillek and the small holds on the Telgar plains. But M’tani refused and so we split up the remaining loads. With all the queens flying in and out of the Weyr, Orlith grew defensive of her eggs and would not leave them . . .” She paused, the terrible pain of her loss making her unable to continue.
“And Holth . . . ,” Kamiana continued for Leri, dropping her head in respect, “volunteered.”
“At my urging,” Leri said sharply, and Kamiana nodded respectfully. “Holth said she could do it. She knew I ached from our morning’s runs and was eager to help Moreta finish the deliveries. She insisted!” She frowned at the memory. “And I wished her well.” Tears overflowed her eyes and trickled down her lined face until Kamiana passed her a soft kerchief. “Holth may have been old, but she was sure and steady.”
Kamiana exchanged looks with Tirone and Desdra. No one would ever know exactly what had happened to Moreta and Holth. Whatever the reason, both were now gone.
Leri straightened her bowed shoulders, not wanting the others to think her last statement was one of criticism. “Not that Moreta wasn’t one of the finest riders in our Weyr. Remember the time she saved V’sen when his dragon was so badly wing-scorched? Why, she and Orlith got so close to the pair that V’sen only had to swing over Orlith’s back from his dragon. And they were able to ease Kordeth to the ground, too. No one but a top-flight rider could have done that!”
Everyone agreed: that mid-air rescue had been a sheer triumph. Both the rider and his blue dragon were still serving the Weyr.